Recently, I’ve been getting into the Legal Eagle‘s Laws Broken series, where Lawyer Devin James Stone looks into various movies and provides an extensive breakdown of specific laws characters have broken over the course of the movie’s runtime. Now, as someone with slightly less legal knowledge than Mr Stone (read: none whatsoever), I thought it would be fun to have a look at some of the silver screen’s worst offenders…

#3 – Charlie Crocker’s Mini Cooper

Crimes Committed: Conspiracy to commit theft, Theft, Property and Landmark violation and Promoting pro Michael Caine sentiment.

Last Seen: 2003, previously 1969.

Before 1969, any self-respecting criminal wouldn’t be caught dead using a Mini Cooper as their getaway vehicle. It was tiny, you couldn’t have a crew of more than three, and it always looked like it would have struggled to clear any unusually large speed bumps or wayward pedestrians.

Where most cars would have just shut up shop and let themselves be relegated to the dustbin of criminal history, the Mini had other plans. It decided to lend its talents to one of the most ambitious heists ever devised.

Stealing $4 million  worth of gold  from Turma, Italy, with both the Italian and French underworld after them was more than ambitious, it was pure lunacy! It was going to take extensive physical training and tactical planning. The Mini surprised everyone, not only managing to get through the job unscathed but also  disappearing from the public eye with their share of the gold.

This alone gives the Mini the clout to be included on this list. However, some 35 years later, the son of the Mini (Mini Jr?) announced itself to the world and took on a heist just as daring as  its dear old dad. While not as exciting or novel as its progenitor, Mini Jr. deserves some recognition for the hard effort of working with Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch without being persuaded to open a Walhburger with its share of the score.

#2 – The Batmobile 

Crimes Committed: Assault, Property destruction, Murder, Murder & Murder

Last Seen: Depends on the version (active 1989 – present)

Anyone that’s followed comics or who has happened to glance at a comic book store in the last fifty years, should be well familiarised with Batman at this point. He’s the DC Universe‘s big broody misery guts with dead parents, a metric shit ton of cash and a martyr complex so large he was to worry about low-flying aircraft.

Some other things synonymous with Batman are his no-killing rule (which seems more like a strong suggestion than firm rule) and his Batmobile. Now depending on your era’s Batman – be it West, Keaton, Kilmer, Bale, Affleck or… Clooney, the Batmobile that comes to mind may be different from mine. The one thing all these Batmobiles share is that they’ve murdered a bunch of people.

Yes, I wouldn’t have expected the Batmobile that shot out a monster flame behind it or the one that tore through vehicles and buildings alike with reckless abandon would have killed people, but there I go again, optimistic sod that I am.

One of the Batmobiles almost ended up killing Batman and Robin, which is an honour that would have left the Joker in a bit of a state if his reaction to Harley almost killing Batman is anything to go off. 

#1 – Anakin Skywalker’s Lightsaber

Crimes Committed: Destroying prophecy, killing younglings, bringing about the end of the Republic.

Last Seen: 2018 (killed by Kylo Ren and Rey Palpatine)

Now, a lot of you may be asking yourself why I’ve included this guy in the competition when Anakin Skywalker was the one that destroyed the Jedi and plunged the galaxy into the hands of the Galatic Empire (accompanied with thunderous applause).

While that is a fair argument to make, for the purposes of this article (if you haven’t figured it out by now), I’m muddying the waters between a character’s actions and their weapon of choice’s actions.

Anyway, as part of Star Wars lore, this lightsaber is one of the galaxy’s worst mass murderers ever committed to film. Not only has this lightsaber seen multiple battles and years of war, its personally been responsible for murdering Sith lords, warriors, countless unthinking feeling droids and a few innocents here and there… don’t think about it too much.

However, that’s during the Clone Wars, surely that can be written off as some unfortunate yet inevitable casualties of war, right? That’s certainly a can of worms that I don’t feel like opening at this point, so let’s place that to one side for the moment and focus on what the lightsaber did post its Clone Wars era. It went into hiding with some old hermit for years before being given to a new heralded saviour to come back and fight its old master, ultimately helping defeat the Empire and save the galaxy… until The First Order rose up.

Having helped defeat the empire would maybe let people consider it a hero in the end. But uh oh, here comes that can of worms from the Clone Wars again. It’s something you just can’t escape from when considering the lightsabers legacy. Even if they did help defeat the empire, they still committed heinous crimes that help it take the top spot in this horrible competition.

Personally, I really enjoy the Mini’s crimes, but a fun, whimsical heist can’t compete against murdering kids and destroying an order of magic users that had existed for eons.

What inanimate object in cinema has the worst criminal record? Let me know in the comments below.